The so-called Sufi orders have a large historical following in the disputed oil-rich region and commanders say that the exploitation by Saddam loyalists of the orders’ extensive network of lodges holds more dangers than Al-Qaeda.

“They have a pretty significant long-term potential to be a threat to the powers that be,” said Major Chuck Assadourian, the intelligence chief of the US Army’s 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, who is based outside the oil city of Kirkuk.

Known as the Army of the Followers of the Naqshbandiya Order, or JRTN from its Arabic acronym, the insurgent group operates under the cover of the order’s many lodges across Kirkuk and neighbouring provinces, and counts Saddam’s fugitive number two Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri among its leaders.

It was founded under the auspices of Ibrahim and former interior minister Mohammed Yunus on the night of Saddam’s execution for crimes against humanity at the end of the end of 2006, Assadourian said.

The members of its military wing are mainly made up of Sunni Arab former members of the Baath party and Saddam’s disbanded armed forces, even though the Sufi orders traditionally claim to draw support from across the region’s ethnic divide.

The JRTN has capitalised on the unpopularity of Al-Qaeda and its foreign fighters, whose brutal tactics and enforcement of a strict version of Islam out of kilter with local traditions has alienated the region’s population.

“They’re (Al-Qaeda) not really as concerned with winning the hearts and minds of the people, they still have their extremist ideology — no alcohol, no smoking, those sort of things — and that’s a big turn-off for the population,” Assadourian said.

Provincial police chief Major General Jamal Taher Bakr agreed that the JRTN were now “the big threat,” surpassing even Al-Qaeda despite its continued mounting of spectacular, mass-casualty bombings. But he took issue with the JRTN’s claim to focus its campaign of violence on US targets rather than Iraqi ones. “They will attack civilian targets in cities, everywhere,” Bakr said.

Assadourian said that overcoming the JRTN threat would take time and would need a political approach as much as a military one to woo former rank-and-file Baathists away from the diehards of the ousted regime. “Obviously national elections would help, if there was a more proportional representation of Sunnis,” he said in allusion to the widespread boycott among Sunni Arabs of the last parliamentary elections in 2005.

“And really there needs to be some determination as far as political accommodation for technocrats from the former regime, non-ideological individuals, because there’s a significant population of those folks.

“With some of the political dynamics right now, a lot of the Baathists are excluded from holding positions and of course that’s very contentious.”

Progress has been slow on re-integrating former Baathists into government employment, after all but the most junior members of the party were barred from government jobs following the US-led invasion of 2003 in what is now regarded as one of the most misguided policies of the occupation.

Assadourian said that JRTN fighters, who also operate in neighbouring Salaheddin province around Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit — a traditional Baathist stronghold, mostly used roadside bombs and grenades, and often exaggerated their battlefield successes.

“They post videos and they’ll drop it off on the street corner — ‘Look at us, look at what we can do, we’re capable, we’ll stand up against the occupiers,’” he said.

“One of the funny things is that they do a monthly production of these videos, and you’ll go from month to month sometimes and you’ll see the exact same video, and they’ll tell you that it’s a different unit that did it or a different location.”

But the group has scored some major coups against US targets.

In January, four US soldiers were killed when two US helicopters on a reconnaissance mission came down, which JRTN claimed happened as a result of their fire.

The US military initially insisted that it was an accident, only to acknowledge the following month that the aircraft were downed by “hostile fire”, but gave no specifics.

Nationwide, security has improved markedly compared to last year, with the number of violent deaths falling by a third in July to 275 from 437 in June.

But the JRTN’s strength in volatile Kirkuk threatens a new flareup with the movement’s mainly Sunni Arab supporters bitterly opposed to longstanding Kurdish claims to incorporate the province and its oil wealth in their northern autonomous region.

With Iraqi government troops, many of them Arab, deployed in the province alongside Kurdish peshmerga militiamen, Western diplomats have expressed fears that the dispute could spark a return to communal bloodshed.

The so-called Sufi orders have a large historical following in the disputed oil-rich region and commanders say that the exploitation by Saddam loyalists of the orders’ extensive network of lodges holds more dangers than Al-Qaeda.

“They have a pretty significant long-term potential to be a threat to the powers that be,” said Major Chuck Assadourian, the intelligence chief of the US Army’s 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, who is based outside the oil city of Kirkuk.

Known as the Army of the Followers of the Naqshbandiya Order, or JRTN from its Arabic acronym, the insurgent group operates under the cover of the order’s many lodges across Kirkuk and neighbouring provinces, and counts Saddam’s fugitive number two Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri among its leaders.

It was founded under the auspices of Ibrahim and former interior minister Mohammed Yunus on the night of Saddam’s execution for crimes against humanity at the end of the end of 2006, Assadourian said.

The members of its military wing are mainly made up of Sunni Arab former members of the Baath party and Saddam’s disbanded armed forces, even though the Sufi orders traditionally claim to draw support from across the region’s ethnic divide.

The JRTN has capitalised on the unpopularity of Al-Qaeda and its foreign fighters, whose brutal tactics and enforcement of a strict version of Islam out of kilter with local traditions has alienated the region’s population.

“They’re (Al-Qaeda) not really as concerned with winning the hearts and minds of the people, they still have their extremist ideology — no alcohol, no smoking, those sort of things — and that’s a big turn-off for the population,” Assadourian said.

Provincial police chief Major General Jamal Taher Bakr agreed that the JRTN were now “the big threat,” surpassing even Al-Qaeda despite its continued mounting of spectacular, mass-casualty bombings. But he took issue with the JRTN’s claim to focus its campaign of violence on US targets rather than Iraqi ones. “They will attack civilian targets in cities, everywhere,” Bakr said.

Assadourian said that overcoming the JRTN threat would take time and would need a political approach as much as a military one to woo former rank-and-file Baathists away from the diehards of the ousted regime. “Obviously national elections would help, if there was a more proportional representation of Sunnis,” he said in allusion to the widespread boycott among Sunni Arabs of the last parliamentary elections in 2005.

“And really there needs to be some determination as far as political accommodation for technocrats from the former regime, non-ideological individuals, because there’s a significant population of those folks.

“With some of the political dynamics right now, a lot of the Baathists are excluded from holding positions and of course that’s very contentious.”

Progress has been slow on re-integrating former Baathists into government employment, after all but the most junior members of the party were barred from government jobs following the US-led invasion of 2003 in what is now regarded as one of the most misguided policies of the occupation.

Assadourian said that JRTN fighters, who also operate in neighbouring Salaheddin province around Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit — a traditional Baathist stronghold, mostly used roadside bombs and grenades, and often exaggerated their battlefield successes.

“They post videos and they’ll drop it off on the street corner — ‘Look at us, look at what we can do, we’re capable, we’ll stand up against the occupiers,’” he said.

“One of the funny things is that they do a monthly production of these videos, and you’ll go from month to month sometimes and you’ll see the exact same video, and they’ll tell you that it’s a different unit that did it or a different location.”

But the group has scored some major coups against US targets.

In January, four US soldiers were killed when two US helicopters on a reconnaissance mission came down, which JRTN claimed happened as a result of their fire.

The US military initially insisted that it was an accident, only to acknowledge the following month that the aircraft were downed by “hostile fire”, but gave no specifics.

Nationwide, security has improved markedly compared to last year, with the number of violent deaths falling by a third in July to 275 from 437 in June.

But the JRTN’s strength in volatile Kirkuk threatens a new flareup with the movement’s mainly Sunni Arab supporters bitterly opposed to longstanding Kurdish claims to incorporate the province and its oil wealth in their northern autonomous region.

With Iraqi government troops, many of them Arab, deployed in the province alongside Kurdish peshmerga militiamen, Western diplomats have expressed fears that the dispute could spark a return to communal bloodshed.

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